I have a little problem...I reinstalled Reaper (3.451) and when I got to the step where I loaded the color toolbar in the Customize Menus/Toolbars window, it wouldn't load the graphics for the toolbar. All of them say "set track" except the last one that says "color man". So technically, it works when I color a track, but I don't see the colors on the toolbar.

In case this is helpful to anybody else, I'll report that the toolbar didn't work for me (in XP) until I dragged everything into the corresponding user//appdata/reaper folders. The instructions say to unzip everything into the folder where reaper is installed, which I read to mean, /programs/reaper.

I'm still having trouble editing the colors themselves. I understand I'm locked to the existing icons, but as somebody else said the colors on the toolbar are darker they look once applied. I'd like the first one to be a much darker red, for instance. Editing in the palette menu doesn't seem to do anything.

Thanks, especially for responding so quick. I am able to load your color set using the method you've described (I think). 2 or 3 of the colors look identical on my monitor, and a coule look the same whether the track is selected or not, but it's basically working.

Trick is if I want to change one of the colors. Let's say I want to make the red in custom 1 darker. I can do the adjustment accessing the palette via the button on the toolbar (or using the normal custom color action), but it doesn't change the color when applied to a track. Thank you again.

Oh, I tried it with default skin. Yeah, the difference is there, but it's too subtle.

I recommend playing around with some other skins, or edit the default one so that it has more difference between selected and unselected tracks. I think the file is called "tcp_bgsel.png" for selected backgrounds. Perhaps make it brighter?

Spent some time today trying to get to the bottom of my color problem. Different themes don't solve the problem. It's as though I'm limited to a narrow color set. If I put dark red in custom 1 and a light red in custom 2, both look the same in actual use.

My sense from your earlier is that I should be able to get fairly fine distinctions, and in any event that this behavior is wrong.

I have the Shoelace them. I can change the colors no problem, but when I select the "Set Track/Item to Default color" option, The color that's default doesn't matches the theme's default color.

[img]http://img249.**************/img249/5439/colorproblem.png[/img]

The freedom progress drone track is a greenish color. This is what the color changes to when I hit the "Set Track/Item to Default" option. The track "Hats untitled Midi..." is the default color I want it to set to.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

EDIT: Nevermind. I had two tracks stacked in the same channel. It's sorted now.

hey folks. I've done everything in the instructions several times, and when it comes time to import the Colour Toolbar Reaper Menu I get this message: ReaperMenu file does not have menu for 'Main Toolbar'"

This is a nice tool, thanks EvilDragon for creating it. Unfortunately it still doesn't work on my PC. I already managed to install the color toolbar once when it was first introduced, although I had to figure it out by myself thru trial and error, instructions didn't help there. The toolbar was also working, kinda. This brings up my first question, any plans for a short manual? Not that there are too many buttons, but nevertheless, their functions seemed too random to figure out a solid way to work with them....at least on quick try.

My second and 3rd installs with later toolbar versions were not that succesful, now the toolbar works like this; press any color button and you'll get any color BUT the one in the button. More so, keep pressing the same button and the colors will step thru sequentially...eventually you'll get even to the color that's actually showed in the button. Again, is this correct behaviour that is just not mentioned anywhere, something depending on settings (which ones) or a bug?

Don't get me wrong, I really do appreciate your work on this. But having had just quick tries with this toolbar, I have to say I have succeeded easier and faster with SWS color extensions so far.

Maybe for fools like me you should change "select import" to "press ímport/export button" ...

Will do, thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tombuur

Now I just need to figure out how I can color the toolbar buttons with my own chosen colors.

You are going to need Photoshop or GIMP for that. Here's the PSD file with layers which I used to make the icons, you can then use the "Desaturated WT icon" layer with "Colorize" function, to change the color of the button to what you want.

Remember that icons have to have the SAME NAME for them in order to work, either that, or you will have to save the icons with your own names, put them into Reaper appdata folder/Data/toolbar_icons, and then use Customize menu to edit all 16 toolbar icons... it's not quite easy to do it if you're a proud newbie in this.

Thanks for this EvilDragon! I already made my own custom color toolbar, but haven't yet changed the icons, this will help with that! So far I've simply assigned blank (text) icons to the toolbar. Basically my version differs from yours mainly in that there are no specific setting changes to be made in preferences, it works in default theme as is.

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Ok, got my first version done. Some colors still missing, but I will probably change button style and colors later anyway. Did it with Inkscape after all, and realized soon enough that the latest versions have a funny bug...at least on some win32 systems; it seems you can't save anything!
Luckily there are couple of workarounds for that, I took the blind way.

Now, this is absolutely not to steal your thunder, EvilDragon, but to thank you for the inspiration and a kick you gave to do this. Thanks again!

<edit:removed bad image link>

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edit2
For anybody reading thru this later;

The official release version of Inkscape 1.48 seems to have fixed the save screen problem mentioned above.

Actually what I said and meant quite literally was "it seems you can't save anything". The bug in Inkscape 1.47 and also in the 1.48pres that I've tried is that when you choose the "Save as..." option, it seems that the screen just freezes and nothing happens. I spend quite a while trying to get this to work, and eventually just spent most of the day doing all my stuff without saving. That's why my icons are not as even and smooth as I wanted them to be, I simply lost track of all the changes, undos and redos without any reference.

Then I learned from some other users that the "Save as..." screen IS actually there, but because of the bug, you just can't see it. So I would just choose "Save as.." and then, without actually seeing anything on the screen, would type in the file name I would like and hit Enter. "The blind way". There's an option in preferences to save to the last used directory, so you'd also know where the stuff went.

Apparently this bug, which they for obvious reasons titled critical, doesn't appear on all systems. Hope they get it fixed, unfortunately the new pres so far have had the same thing happening.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xplora

Has 3.66 broken the toolbar?

Mine has worked just fine, but last night I did lose one of my custom colors? The funny things is, all I was doing was messing with MIDI stuff and menus, I never even touched the floating toolbar or its settings while doing that. Then when I went to change some colors, one of them was missing. The icon was still there, but the color was something else. To top that, after that I couldn't even record new MIDI tracks anymore, no matter what I tried. Got frustrated, closed the puter and played gtr for 4 hours, now that felt good. Maybe I'll get back to Reaper today, and see where we're at...

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edit2
For anybody reading thru this later;

The official release version of Inkscape 1.48 seems to have fixed the save screen problem mentioned above.

The one and only difference is that I changed the filenames of all the icons! Now every icon is preceding with "toolbar_", which will enable Reaper to recognize the icons when they are packed within a .ReaperThemeZip file or theme folder!!!

This means that you don't need to have the icons in %appdata%/Reaper/Data/toolbar_icons anymore, you can PACK IT DIRECTLY IN YOUR THEME FILE!!! (Provided that you have "Allow themes to override" activated in Properties->Appearance->Theme Editor!)

This is going to be extremely important for themers, so take heed and update your color toolbars, today!

The install procedure is much the same. Just remove the old icon names, and reimport the Color Toolbar .ReaperMenu file! The link is also the same - just click in my signature!